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politics and public affairs programming throughout the week, and every weekend, 48 hours of people and events telling the american story on american history tv. get our schedules and see past programs at our websites, and you can join in the conversation on social media sites. senate budget committee chairman kent conrad holds a news conference to preview the committee's fiscal year 2013 budget resolution markup. that news conference here on c-span3 live at 2:45 eastern. until then, from this morning's "washington journal," a discussion on investigations at spending at the gsa. the general services administration.rday dennis of the federal work . force, yesterday's gsa hearing, the first of four this week. another one today and then two senate committee it's take it up on wednesday and thursday. >> yes. >> did we learn anything new?

>> yes. >> two senate committees take it up on wednesday and thursday? did we learn anything new yesterday? >> well, not so much did we learn anything new, but i think we are raising the awareness of what's going on in government right now is indicative of why congress has a 9% approval rating. these agencies who spend the taxpayer dollars are doing so in such a fashion that i think we're discovering has some sense of recklessness to it. yesterday's hearing confirmed that. the agency director who stepped down, was very conciliatory. i appreciate that, but the fact remains that there has been waste going on in this federal government for so long, and i think yesterday was just the tip of the iceberg of what is indicative of going on in these agencies. >> what did you make of mr. neely pleading the fifth? >> i think that it was probably wise for him on the advice of his counsel. you know, as my colleague trey gatty said he would like to see an indictment out of this ig

report. that might be forthcoming. pleading the fifth is not done so just out of, out of fancy. in this particular case, i think it was probably necessary for him to do that. to do what he did in this regard with the western regional conference event was absolutely ridiculous and appalling. you know, to have a budget of $250,000 spend over $820,000 of taxpayer dollars on trinkets. anybody who looks at this, no matter how deep you go is going to understand that this was just wrong. >> necessary because of legal reasons? is there criminal activity here? >> well, depends. i don't know for sure. but i think the only reason that you would plead the fifth is if there was some suggestion there might be criminal penalties forthcoming, or at least alleged. >> you touch on this a little bit, but here's what the inspector general found in his investigation. the conference cost $823,000.

and the -- let me see here. the food and beverage caters about $146,000. teen building exercises, building bikes, 75k. commemorative coins, $6 sh,300. we learned from the inspector general there could be kickbacks happening here. >> oh, yeah. >> this has been recommended to the justice department. can you tell us more? what happens next? >> well, we'll have to wait and see what the justice department does. the ig completed his report. now you'll see congress take its toll with the next three hearings that ge on. they'll probably be legislation forthcoming. most likely i expect there will be legislation forthcoming limit expend chirps requiring more oversight and accountability of the agency heads charged with the responsibility of making these payments. also, why is the government agency going out there and doing that which the private sector

would do in having these conferences? taxpayer dollars? we don't operate on profit. these are tamt taxpayer collars and we freed to responsibly spend them. >> as chairman of the subforce committee do you plan to introducelegislation? >> yes. if these agencies to whom we dell grated this authority from congress if they cannot responsibly do this, then we as congress who gave them this authority should reach back and -- and have this oversight authority over them. this is absolute lly appalling. fourth year of well over a trillion in deficits. the american people have had enough. we in congress have to show proactive, not reactive, proactive decision in making sure this doesn't happen again. >> four hearings. one yesterday. one today before the house transportation subcommittee.

mr. micah's committee. we're going to cover that. then the senate takes it up. two senate committees. are four hearings necessary? >> well, there's a political nature to this, too, as you well know. you know, this is very sensational. we're seeing a very bad situation being brought to light, and i think a lot of those that are in positions of authority to invist gate this want to make sure they have their day and have their say in what needs to be done. it's not so much the coverage that it gets in terms of hearings. what matters is the outcome of these hearing. will something be done? are we just doing this for the sake of addressing to the american public there's a problem? are we actually going to do something that prohibits this type of activity from of happening again. >> so explain what does the gsa do and would you -- are you in favor of privatizing it perhaps? >> the gsa is the government's quartermaster. procure contracts, maintain leases. maintain the real property. they maintain the equipment for the federal government.

do we freed to privatize it? well, maybe we ought to look into that. if they're esflishl a nongovernment business, maybe we need to delegate that to the private sector, but maybe not. but what we have to do is investigate and see what they've been doing over the last several year, no matter what administration they were under, whether republican or democrat. because what happened in october of 2010 with this western regional conference is wrong. and that has to be corrected, and we need to dig deep to make sure that this isn't the only agency doing this. >> speaking of today's hearing, here is c-span's website that shows the hearing examining gsa's management and spending prxs. this is john micah's committee. this will be taken up, this hearing starts at 8:30 a.m. eastern time. go to our website, c-span.org to find out when this will air, and on, who's testifying and other details on our website. c-span.org. so what happens next, then, with gsa? i mean, specifically, they need

a new administrator now. what happens? >> well, you'll see some legislation come forward from various members. probably see something come forward from the oversight committee. you may see something come forward from micah's transportation committee. all substantiated by the testimony we gain from the forthcoming hearings. why was this gentleman, why was mr. neely given a $9,000 raise in december of 2011 when he knee well over a year something ras wong? why didn't the agency director, ms. johns, notified by the inspector general this report would be forthcoming there were improprieties, terrible improprieties, why didn't she take corrective action then? it wasn't until the report was released april 2nd she decided to resign and then action was taken with other employees. i think you're going to see fallout here based on this testimony. i think there are some people, like mr. foley who testified yesterday, preserving himself to

be more open to discuss what happened. so i think you'll see some serious personnel changes in gca. >> what about legislation on the floor to debate this soon? >> oh, yeah. oh, yes. yes. >> all right. let's take a look at gsa by the numbers here. it's 2011 budget was about $30 billion. the 2011 federal buildings fund, about $17 billion. has abouts 12,000 employees. 11 regional offices and in d.c. manages about $500 billion in federal assets. buildings and cars referred to. manages 968 buildings preserves 478 historic properties. 98% of its budget paid for through gsa services and 2% of budget paid for by congressional appropriations. >> right. >> so it's not taxpayer -- most of it is not taxpayer dollars. the budget comes from whatever they make on the leasing. is that right? how does that work? that is correct.

however, there are taxpayer dollars. that doesn't absolve them of the responsibility from being good stewards of what they do. they would not exist but for the federal government. they are stewards of the federal government's assets and need to keep that in mind and be invested in how they spend their dollars. eve bein their own admission, what happened was wrong, appalling, ridiculous, out of order. it was contrary to the gsa regulations. it doesn't matter, you know, whether it was 98% of self-generated dollars or 2% of taxpayer dollars. the fact remains they are an agency of government, need to be held accountable for what they do. >> i might have misspoke. the profits that generate is taxpayer money. >> right. >> go to jim in buffalo, new york. independent there. first for dennis ross, republican of florida. go ahead, jim. >> caller: good morning. i've listened to mr. neely's responses to the questions that were posed to him, and as a taxpayer, i respectfully decline to pay his salary, his health benefits and his retirement. all right?

if we're going to continue to have these criminals in our government, we need to shut them off from their salary, health benefits and retirement. so, mr. ross, the only thing i have to say to you and your colleague is to fix this. this is why the taxpayers are so disgusted. we see this stuff going on and nothing of happens to rectify it. so, please, fix it. >> i agree. you know, yesterday when ms. johnson testified, and she was asked why mr. neely received a $9,000 raise, she said, there's two reasons you can receive a raise. one by performance, and the other is by conduct. and she tried to distinguish between the two and basically said she had to, because his performance was good, even though his conduct was bad. >> let me tell you something. if i don't contact is bad. that's cause enough to not only terminate your employment also a basis upon which cannot receive your retirement benefits, what's invested. these are issues that now have been brought to light for us. we plead to hold people accountable, the same way we

should be held account in congress, we made to make sure these employees are held accountable as well. >> can you take mr. neely's pension away? his retirement benefits away? can you take his bonus away? >> i believe, i don't know this for sure. the only way this could happen if is his conduct in the furtherance of his duties resultsed in the commission of a felony upon which he was convicted might be able to do that. just to do did ipso facto, no, if you will. >> don from oregon. good morning. >> caller: yes. good morning. thank you for taking my call. i would pose to senator ross that i fail to see the difference between the gsa administrator spending lavish funds on this type of an enterprise. i have trouble sdwush distinguishing that between the president of the united states traveling around raising money

for his own personal campaign benefits, and the first lady accompanying him in different planes and those lavishing expenses and expenses that should rightfully be charged to the dmc. >> mr. ross? >> again a good point. and don, i will tell you, again it doesn't matter what administration, republican or democrat, they need -- those in charge need to be held accountable how they spend taxpayer dollars. they not only need to be accountable but transparent. we need to make sure these expenses are posted, that they are made public to the american people. let the american people decide. we can clearly show by way of this gsa report what was misappropriated if you will, for this event, and, again i think yesterday was indicative of what is just the tip of the iceberg of what may be going on in other agencies at other departments in the federal government. >> here's a tweet from don richie who said, wait a second. gsa raises its own funds?

mind your business, mr. ross, he says. root around for government waste in the d.o.d. actual taxpayer dollars i. agree that we have to make reductions in the department of defense. no question about that. have to do that in every agency. the gao reported 20% of the programs the government has are duplicative including the department of defense. again, the tip of the iceberg. you know, we've grown government to a degree that we've never seen before. if we can't sustain over the next several years if we don't do something about it. let this be a warning sign to us with the gsa that it's not just the gsa. it's every agency out there. including congress. including the executive. we have to look at in order to trim our budgets. the american people demand that. >> as chairman of the subcommittee over federal work force will you be looking into the secret service issue, the alleged misconduct by 11 or a dozen of those many employees? does that fall under you? >> you know, we do the federal work force to that extent.

yes, it may go to the full committee over me just because of more participation from more people. we would love to have the hearing on that. and, you know if i'm fortunate enough to get that, most likely it will be the full committee, though. >> have you heard from your chairman on it? >> not yet. >> all right. earl, democratic caller, jacksonville, florida kr. >> caller: hi. how you doing. a quirks i believe ms. johnson, she made a bad decision as far as with giving the guy the bonus and everything, but as far as how she came out, resigning and things, i thought she did well. now, when it comes to auditing and things, i think all of guys should be audited all the time. you all are -- i'm not saying -- i do know a lot of congressmen and congresswomen and all that, everybody goes around spending our money the way they want to spend it and not get audited or held accountable.

good accountability, there's not good accountability. you spend taxpayers' money or golfing or lavish dinners and all kinds of things. >> mr. ross? >> i don't know about the golfs and lavish dinners, because i don't believe i've participated in any of that, but i will tell you that we have very stringent transarensy rules. nome our financial statements we have to disclose every year, but our members account that we use to fund our offices here in d.c. and in the district including our payroll for all employees is public record. it should be public record. it should be open to scrutiny. whether we audit it or not, there is the gao that will do that. but i will tell you that all of this is open for public inspection, and should be inspected by the public and scrutinized. >> alexandria, virginia. kent, independent caller. >> caller: yes, good morning bp i watched the investigation yesterday, the congressional hearings and one of the, a couple things they were talking about or trying to find out is

just how could this happen. and the ig told them how it could happen. he said it was a lack of accountability. and as it continued it was a lack of accountability, because congress had failed to appoint the appropriate administrators to oversee mr. neely. mr. neely apparently was wearing two hats, and he could approve any amount of money he wanted to, because congress had failed to appoint the appropriate administrators, and, of course, the previous director was waiting for appointment also, but they -- they just drifted over that. >> all right. mr. ross? is that -- i mean, how does that work? >> i mean, i'd like to think that all of those people over there, even though they are adults have some sense of logic and reason to dictate their behavior. it didn't require, it should never have required, an agency director to tell mr. neely what

he was doing was wrong. mr. neely should have known that from the beginning. it wouldn't have mattered if we had an agency director in place or not. we did have acting directors in place at the time. you know, he can't stand by and say, oh, i did this because we didn't have an agency director. no. what he did was wrong. he flew it was wrong. reason dictates it was wrong and any reasonable person would suggest it was wrong and should never have been done. i don't put must credibility is the reason this happen is because congress failed to appoint a full-time agency director. we did have interim directors at the time all charged with atability fon that office and none should be exonerated because they didn't exercise that ability. >> martha johnson in her opens statement said she used to head it up under clinton, left, came back, talk and the condition she found gsa in and what she did under her leadership. we'll take a look and then get your reaction. >> -- by the time i was sworn in

sequence of four acting administrators had seen the agency. what i did not know there was yet another problem. the western region's conference and economic training event in the late 1990s had evolved into a raucous, extravagant, arrogant self-congratulatory event that ultimately belittled federal workers. leaders apparently competed in entertainment rather than building performance capability. the expense of planning for that conference was well underway when ise enders gsa. thus for my part i said about reconstituting gsa's executive team. over three quarters of the senior executives are in different roles than when i arrived. the gsa path is clear, customers praise us publicly, praise gsa publicly. the labor partnership is fruitful, gsa has e-mail in the cloud, headquarters which held

2,500 people, will be home to 4,500 people next year allowinging gsa to elirelinquis and save millions. >> your response? >> i would give credibility to the argument that there was a culture she couldn't change, and that she came in to now clean up a mess. she was appointed full time in february 2012, some eight months before this event took place. as a leader, she should have stopped it. i don't believe she can stand there today and say there was so much disarray that in eight months she couldn't stop what was obviously an event that should have never taken place contrary to the regulations of the gsa. she has a wonderful resume. give her a lot of credit for stepping down when she did, but this culture of hypocrisy, this culture of aggregate behavior that took place under both administrations needs to be corrected. it requires congressional

involvement at this point. what's going to be done i don't know. but ms. johnson as the leader, as the head of the agency, who was there eight months before this event could have stopped it. >> charles, a republican in maryland. >> caller: good morning, y'all. thank you for c-span. it's a great show you put on. a call about this top hat program wherein the purchase of consumer electronics, ipods et cetera was done, it's my understanding those purchases w c were done with purchase card rebablts. supposed to issue that for all government agencies. in any case, the resources for the top hat i pards came from this rebate, my understanding. my question to you, mr. ross, is, does the government pay to get these rebates? in other words, when the procurement goes out to the banks answers the banks bid on

the work to furnish the government with these purchase cards, it's my belief that these rebates are not free to the government. the government pay as latent cost for these rebates. therefore, i urge you in your legislative study of this to, in your next procurement, eliminate these darn rebates and not have two benefits. so get rid of these -- these programs such as this. the government workers make plenty of money and they don't need any of these, this kind of incentive programs. two, it will save the taxpayers' money. what say you? >> i concur with you. what's interesting there are i believe five event planners for the gsa. event planners for the government services administration, and yet the government -- the fact -- that's a fact hard to believe. what's really hard to believe is that irare theive of those five, the gsa in this particular occasion went out and hired their own event planner who was paid a $12,000 finders fee for setting up this event at the spa

resort in las vegas.absurd, abs untenable. these reebtsz, done at the government expense need to be eliminated. >> this tweet follows up on the caller talking about the gsa scandal. it was contributed to by the fact that neely had two different roles and was able to approve spending. a lack of overer sight. here's sasha 2000 on twitter. how many weeks of vacation in 2011 for the gop oversight, asking indirectly here, you know, we, congress goes on breaks. are you doing enough oversight? >> i hope so. i think we've probably been the most active committee in congress, which most people say, that doesn't matter, it's a relevant term. just because we're not in washington, d.c. doesn't mean we're not home at home in our workweek. follow us as home. i would challenge some.

we are busy at home but doing oversight as well and field hearings. interesting. if we were given a heads up in may of 2011, by then director martha johnson, about this oversight, or this independent -- the inspector general's report, we might have been able to take a little bit quicker action. we might have been able to do hearings as early as last summer instead of now doing it when it's released in april of 2012. >> in north carolina, sheryl joins us, a democratic caller there. go ahead, sheryl. >> caller: yes, i just don't see much difference between the gsa wasting money and republican congress who are getting their salaries and benefits for three years and all they have been doing is saying no to the president. the republicans have accomplished nothing in the past three years. >> all right. let's get a response to that. >> well, i've been married for going on 29 consecutive years this august. and my wife and i don't always get along but we understand that

in order to get things done we have to agree on some thing opinions same way in congress. the house has to agree with the senate. there's no one party that can be held liable in this allegation you make. i think there are two parties. both the house and senate and they have to come to terms, and i think what year seeing is evidence of a gridlock that came about as result of the election of 2010 which the american people spoke up and said we don't want to go down the path we've been going and the house is working to change that course. we'll see whats in 2012. >> talking with congressman dennis ross, republican of florida. oversight government reform committee, chairs the committee on federal work force represents the 12th district serving in his first term. joe from pennington gap, virginia. >> caller: yes. good morning. >> good morning. >> caller: i just have a quick question. if the gsa is, is it the only agency that gets a large bonus for doing their job jie me?

i mean, we pay them a good salary, pay their insurance, retirement, give then per diem cars to travel around. how much do we have to pay these people? >> no, they are not the only agency that gives bonuses. there is the, what's called, of course, the gs -- the government schedule which is a schedule by which people are paid their according salary in most cases with regard to federal employment but one of the area ice would love to see us address. i introduced a bill that would have required that members of congress reduce their pensions, increase the amount of vesting, years of vesting, and put it in parody with federal work force and make sure the federal work force pays more to be in line with what's dmun other governments, state governments and also in the private sector. able to get it passed out of committee. saving $42 billion but it's not goal anywhere. the reason, it affect those of us up here and that's unfortunate. i agree with you. there should be performance

incentives for people to do good work. no question about that. if you're just paid because you're there you're not going to get the quality of work one could and should perform. i believe pay for performance is somethinging that we need to explore in order to get the best employee out of our federal many employees. >> ron, republican caller. >> caller: good morning, c-span. >> good morning. >> caller: the only thing i got to say, on both houses. they're going to do nothing about this until the next situation arises. mr. ross is probably trying, it's going to be ineffective. we are going to be stuck again with the bill. they are going to do nothing. they're going to rake in the $179,000 a year, and steal the public blind. >> what do you make of that sentiment? >> i think he expresses the sentiment of the majority of americans out there, and that's most unfortunate. i think it's time that this congress, this congress -- let me tell you, these are times that, in my lifetime, i have not

seen. as far as the controversy, the partisanship that's going on right now. you raise very good points. you know, we freed to aneed to . the american public are demanding we act yet we still seem to wander along without resolution on these issues. i can only hope we do act appropriately and put a stop that this. that's what we're charged with, and i understand your frustration, and your anger, and it's probably not misplaced at all. >> you said house republican leadership indicated they would like legislation on the floor. >> yes. >> do you have a timeline? when they would like to put this -- >> forthcoming, hopefully by the end of the month, the end of april. >> dealing with just the gsa or-- >> government wide, yes. >> how much money is spent government wide? >> i'm sorry. >> is that what it would do, government wide? >> agency wide. yes. i think quite frankly congressional appropriations need better oversite. >> connie, democratic caller in

bowie, maryland. >> caller: good morning. >> good morning. >> caller: i just wanted to say, this has happened under republicans and democrats. i've worked as a contractor for the government for 37 years and seen this happen so many times, and everybody wants to always say it's the democrats that waste and spend. well, i found out that it wasn't. that republicans waste and spend more than anybody. when they come in, when they come into an agency, they have to have new desks, new curtains, new carpet and throw something out that's just been brought in. >> dennis ross? >> ma'am i would not take issue about either republicans or democrats being wasteful. i think they both have been. i wasn't lehere when republican was involved. i'm not here to appaologize or make excuses, irregardless of the party whas